First day highlights of Zurich Classic of New Orleans – Part1
The Zurich Classic of New Orleans, which is in progress at the Tournament Players Club Louisiana, has stepped into the second round. Here is a quick recap for the event.
Bubba Watson and Matt Jones compiled a score of 6-under-par, 66 to surge into a joint lead. Watson, who is the longest hitter on the PGA Tour, reeled six birdies, one eagle and two bogeys in the first eighteen holes. Meanwhile, Jones topped the stats in
birdie-count as he collected eight birdies out of which four were in the back.
A six-way tie was seen at the third spot, which included David Duval, Nick O'Hern, John Rollins, Carl Pettersson, Tommy Gainey and Joe Durant.
Duval and O’Hern were the only two players in the group who did not drop a shot and managed to keep their scorecard free from blemishes. The duo picked five birdies each. The American, O’Hern demonstrated his familiarity with the course in the form of his
driving accuracy, which was 93 percent.
Meanwhile, Durant, who held the lead for most of the day, before Jones and Watson surged up reeled six birdies against a bogey.
The player was happy with his ability of tackling the windy conditions. While talking to the press he said, “I just stayed very patient today. Some of the pins were in some difficult spots so you had to kind of shoot away from them. I just took what the
course gave me today. I had a couple of good opportunities that I was able to capitalize on. I played around here enough to know what it's going to do with different winds, and I just had a game plan for the north wind, so it worked out pretty well.”
Another group of six players were tied for the ninth spot with a score of 4-under-par, 68. A part of that group was Englishman, Luke Donald, who won the Accenture Match Play Championship a few weeks back.
Donald teed off from the front and reeled two birdies and two at the back to produce a spot-less start. He was brilliant in hitting Greens in Regulation, as he attained the success rate of 89 percent, but he faltered in putting on the fast greens.
He was joined by K.J Choi of Korea and Charles Howell III of United States. The Korean took off from the front and birdied the second hole for a quick warm-up. After a gap of four greens, he rolled another birdie putt, but gave it up for a bogey on the ninth
hole. On his way to the back, he picked three more birdies and wrapped the day with a score of 4-under-par.
Meanwhile, Howell also teed off from the front, but could not attain much success, as he picked a solitary birdie there. However, circumstances turned into his favour, as he stepped on the tenth green. The American birdied two of the opening holes and two
of the closing three holes to take a share in the top section of the leaderboard.
Article continued in Part 2…
Tags: